Social sharing buttons are pointless (except when they’re not)

Only 2 out of every 1000 mobile web users ever tap a custom share button—like even once—according to a Moovweb study. We found similarly tiny numbers during our research designing Philly.com and verticals for About.com. That means people are over 11 times more likely to tap a mobile advertisement than a mobile share button for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.

To be clear: people do share a ton of webpages to those services from mobile devices, but it happens through other means—using browsers’ built-in sharing tools or copying the URL directly into a social post. Mobile users have established their own sharing habits, in other words, and for the vast majority, those habits don’t involve share buttons embedded in the page canvas.

Turns out that use of custom share buttons leaps way, way, way up for visitors coming directly from a social network. People are 20 times more likely to use a social button on mobile when they’ve tapped through from a social network, we discovered during our research designing the About.com verticals. Call them the “20x users.”

BUT, if someone visits your site from Facebook, show the Facebook sharing button. If they visit from Twitter, show the Twitter sharing button. I’d recommend using the static HTML versions instead of the ones the social networks give you.

Josh recommends setting a cookie and making them persistent across the visit.